


Fig Leaves

by Gracesgirl



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: F/F, another step on the journey, deepening friendship, the work of loving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 02:58:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracesgirl/pseuds/Gracesgirl
Summary: A one-shot that follows chronologically after "The Most Precious Gift."





	Fig Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> But I see your true colors  
> Shining through  
> I see your true colors  
> And that's why I love you.
> 
> Cyndi Lauper, "True Colors," 1986

It was a lovely early October Saturday and Carol and Therese were relaxing in bed, the windows open, letting in a delightful, fresh breeze which carried a nip of coolness and notable absence of summer’s stifling heat and humidity.  They had made love earlier and lay now on their sides facing each other, content to stroke silky smooth skin in the still, quiet mid-morning.

 

     After some time, Therese could sense Carol’s thought processes wander and intensify as the older woman’s eyes took on a distracted look and her forehead creased periodically.  The young brunette expelled a gentle breath, saying, “Your thoughts are getting heavy!  What are you thinking about?”

 

     Carol’s hand stilled on its path down Therese’s back and she smiled rather ironically.  “How is it you always know when I have something on my mind, darling?  I feel like a sign was just posted on my forehead or something.”

 

     The younger woman returned the smile.  “Well, not a sign, at least not words…but when you’re thinking heavier thoughts you get a very definite crease in your forehead and your eyes looked glazed,” she responded, somewhat amused.

 

     Carol put on a fake worried expression.  “Oh my I’m going to get wrinkles, aren’t I?  Or at least add a few more!”  Her young lover leaned over and kissed her lips lightly, then each cheek, and finally the crease still evident in her forehead.  “You can get as wrinkled as you want.  You’ll still be beautiful to me!” Therese said as she stroked Carol’s back soothingly.  “But seriously, is there…are you okay?”

 

     Carol smirked, the irony evident again.  “Yes, I’m perfectly fine.  It’s like you just read my mind though.”  She paused, taking in Therese’s emerald green eyes and lovely, flawless skin, her cheeks still pink with the kiss of their lovemaking.  “Do you remember the time you told me I was magnificent?”

 

     Therese smiled, her eyes taking on the lovely glow of pleasant remembrance.  “Of course I do!  It was our very first lunch together!  How could I forget that, Carol?  But…why are you thinking of it now?”

 

     Carol sighed, stalling for a bit, her gaze moving to a random spot above her companion’s shoulder, deliberate in not making eye contact.  But then she closed her blue-gray eyes with the silver specks that so fascinated Therese, and when she opened them her look was piercing and direct.  “Am I still, darling?  Knowing me better now, with all my idiosyncrasies…do you…do you still think I’m magnificent?” 

 

     Carol’s question was asked tentatively and Therese could hear the insecurity in her voice.  She reached up a hand and placed it gently on her cheek.  “Carol, yes…yes, I still think you’re magnificent!”  There was a quiet, steady passion in the younger woman’s voice, meant to be reassuring and supportive.  “Of course I do!  Why would you think not?”

 

     Carol sat up suddenly, agitation clear on her face.  She shook her head from side to side, blond hair swishing and catching a passing sheen from the sun spilling into the bedroom.  “Oh, I don’t…it’s just old thoughts, I suppose.  I’ve been thinking of Harge lately.  I miss Rindy terribly.  We haven’t seen her in a month and it brings back all that ugliness, Therese.  The divorce, the humiliation, the damning of our relationship, of _who I am_ …I’m not feeling all that magnificent today,” she almost whispered.

 

     Therese’s heart ached for the beautiful blond woman whose slender legs were crossed in front of her now as she ran restless fingers through her hair.  As usual, she thought Carol looked stunning, and sitting there naked her smooth shoulders, full breasts and the enticing curves of her torso and hips made Therese think of some Grecian sculpture, or maybe even a model for Michelangelo.  Yet she was well aware it wasn’t what _she_ thought of Carol right now but the other woman’s thoughts about herself.  _Why was it that we can never see ourselves as others do, especially those that love us?_   She sat up, too, so she could look Carol in the eye now.  “Carol,” she began with soft earnestness, “I’m so sorry!  I know that sounds so inadequate but I am!  It doesn’t even seem to help that I still want to fucking kill Harge, either, but I do!  But you…yes, you are magnificent, and never more so!”

 

     “But why, darling?  Why do you think so?”  There was a kind of agony in the older woman’s voice that tugged painfully at Therese’s heart.  “You see what is real about me now, all the warts, the times I’m short-tempered, when I drink too much, my lack of kindness, the me that becomes cold and withdrawn, the cynical side of me.  How could I still be magnificent?  I’m _not_ , don’t you see?”

 

     Therese almost smiled incongruently then because she recognized the glimpse of joy around the edges of her awareness, shimmering like silver minnows slicing through a creek’s spring celebrations.  It was joy for this flow between them, the utter openness, the lack of walls and barriers, the authenticity.  There was a _purity_ here she didn’t understand, a beautiful, mysterious communion that took her breath away.  And then she thought of Sr. Alicia, as she often did when a piece of wisdom came to her.  And she did smile, brilliantly.  “It’s about fig leaves, Carol!  Fig leaves!” she whispered passionately, her joy beginning to seep out in green waves that seemed to pulsate within her eyes.

 

     Carol could not have looked more lost or more perplexed.  “Did you say ‘ _fig leaves’_ , darling?  I’m not…I don’t follow you.”

 

     “We’re taking off our fig leaves!  And you couldn’t be more beautiful to me, not one bit! Sr. Alicia told me it would be this way…she told me about our fig leaves, about hers, too…”  Her eyes were shining and full of hope.  “She told me you would get more and more beautiful!  She was right, as usual…she—“ Therese stopped mid-sentence, finally seeming to notice how lost and confused Carol was.  Then she completely surprised the older woman when she asked, “Have you ever heard of Adam and Eve?”

 

     Carol blinked and then laughed.  “Therese, I may not believe in God but I was a literature major in college!  And the bible is a great work of literature as well as being the Christian holy book.  Adam and Eve are referenced in a lot of other works, too, darling, so yes, I have heard of them,” she said with a wry smile.

 

     Therese had the grace to look sheepish.  She lifted her bare shoulders in apology as she continued, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to demean you.  I just…Alicia taught me about Adam and Eve and their fig leaves.  How in the Garden of Eden, after they had eaten the forbidden fruit they became self-conscious for the first time and covered themselves with fig leaves. They didn’t feel free to be naked anymore.  And she said we’re the same way!  When deep down we don’t feel good enough or reject an aspect of ourselves, we put on our fig leaves.  We cover up who we truly are. 

 

     But who you really are is what’s beautiful, Carol!”  She grasped Carol’s hands tightly.  _“That’s_ why I still think you’re magnificent!  It’s why,” she said, stroking the older woman’s cheek softly with the backs of her fingers, “you’ve never been more so!  You’re letting me see the real you, Carol.  You’ve taken off your fig leaves, along with your clothes!”  Carol loved the impish look on her face, and the way it gently morphed into love.  She spoke with such kindness it brought tears to Carol’s eyes.  “I love you with your fig leaves off.  I really do.  And yes, you can be cynical and cold and sarcastic at times.  All those faults you mentioned.  But you’re cynical and open to new experiences.  You can be cold, yes, but you’re also very warm and generous and loving!  You’re darkness and light, beauty and the beast.  I wouldn’t want you any other way!”  She smiled warmly then, willing Carol’s heart to soften, to absorb, to accept.

 

     The older woman’s eyes filled with tears.  “Oh Therese,” she replied softly.  “You are so good to me!  What did I ever do to deserve you?”  She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand in very un-Carol-like fashion, then raised that same hand to the younger woman’s cheek, which she stroked gently. 

 

     “I’m only giving back what you give me, Carol.”  Therese’s voice was hushed, so quiet Carol could barely hear her.  “I’ve taken off my fig leaves, too, and you accept me even though…even though I’m an orphan and working class and I was a poor shop girl…”  At first, Carol couldn’t name the bodily expression she saw come over Therese, like an echo of the plague with its dark impenetrability.  And then it was as if a mirror was held up and the beautiful blond woman was looking at herself.  _Shame.  She feels ashamed of who she is._   Her heart clenched, a place within her cried out despairingly.  _Shame!_   _That fucking, awful wound!_

But Carol responded with the generosity of heart that was her gift to the world, though she rarely saw this.  She shook her head as if warding off the blows, as if she could empower them both. Then she forcefully exclaimed, “No!  No, no, no, Therese!  You mustn’t think that way!  Oh, fuck!  Shit!”  She couldn’t help herself and reached cross the short distance between them, practically yanking the naked young woman into her arms, tucking her head against her own naked breast and beginning to rock her in a comforting motion that seemed older than time itself.  _Why do we rock each other?_ The thought came unbidden, floating through her conscious mind like a speck of dust kicked up in a walk through a musty room.  “Darling, I’m so sorry!  I’m sorry you see yourself as less than!”  She paused, although her movements continued, and gradually she could feel Therese relax, her rigid body almost collapsing in what Carol hoped was relief.

 

     After a few more minutes of silent rocking, Carol pulled slightly away from Therese, enough so that she could look into her eyes.  “You must know,” she whispered, “that I’ve never once thought of you as a poor, orphaned shop girl!  That I never wanted to be with you because I felt sorry for you.  Please, Therese, _tell me you know this!_ ”  Once again unable to restrain herself, the older woman grasped her young lover by the chin and tilted it upward, enough so that they could look easily into each other’s eyes.

 

     Therese could feel tears prick at the back of her eyelids and she clenched her jaw so tightly pain shot to her ears.  Swallowing with difficulty, she ventured a reply, her voice soft and hushed.  “It’s not about you, Carol…I mean, about how you feel about me.”  She sighed, a weighty sigh that made Carol so sad.  “This is really part of my inner journey, isn’t it?  My feelings about _myself_ , my upbringing…my mom abandoning me.  Alicia told me she can hear my shame.”  Therese took a deep breath, expelling it slowly, almost meditatively.  Then she looked pointedly into Carol’s eyes which shimmered now with compassionate understanding. “I can’t lie.  I do feel ashamed of my past.  It’s embarrassing.  I wear fig leaves because I’ve never felt good enough, never like I truly belonged.”

 

     Carol suddenly felt as if she couldn’t stay upright a moment’s more.  Turning slightly, she grabbed several pillows and piled them into a comfortable looking mound, and then drew Therese into her arms as she encouraged the younger woman to lay back with her.  Soon they were settled, Therese securely held in Carol’s arms with her head tucked into the crook of a shoulder.  Carol expelled a breath, realizing she must have needed the soft, pillowed supports.  In her mind’s eye she could almost see the two of them laying in masses of cumulus clouds, floating in an azure sky where the sun poured around them in flows of honeyed gold.  Everything within her sighed with relief.

 

     With her lips against Therese’s forehead, Carol softly said, “You don’t need to be anything but you to belong here, sweetheart.  Everything about your life, about you, is okay here, with me.  You don’t need the fig leaves anymore.”  She felt the young woman sigh as she tightened the slender arm that lay across Carol’s waist.  “Thank you…so much,” Therese replied softly.  “It’s my work.  Somehow I have to figure out how to heal the part of me that feels so much shame.”

 

     “Did Alicia have any ideas for you?” Carol asked, thinking it might help them both to know any wisdom from the nun who had become a swami and guide for them both.

 

     Therese nodded, her expression one of expectation and not surprise.  Her cheeks felt warm as she brushed a few stray locks of brunette hair off her forehead.  She laughed lightly.  “Alicia said what she usually says, Carol.  ‘Open up. Bring the wound out of hiding so the light can reach it.’  You know, that kind of thing…”  She paused, and Carol could almost feel the weightiness of her young lover’s thoughts seeping into her own skin.  “She shared a lot, though.  She’s had her own journey to heal her sense of shame.  She said for years she felt faulted for her rape because no one validated her experience.  For the longest time there was no one to hear her, to walk in her shoes through that whole horror.  She couldn’t even tell Maggie about the shame for the longest time.  But once she did, once she told her story, took off her fig leaves and was loved fully and regardless, the shame wound began to heal.”

 

     Carol paused her hand in its arc of stroking Therese’s back from shoulder to hip bone, resting it gently upon silky skin with the most tender touch she knew.  “Maybe that’s what we’re doing then, darling.  Taking off the fig leaves, as you say.  Loving each other’s most wounded selves, accepting them.  Do you…do you think?”

 

     The young woman picked her head up, a sweet expression on her face, a gentle smile upon her lips.  “I think so.  I’ll love you without your fig leaves, Carol.  I promise!  I just…it’s scary to let you love me that way, too.”

 

     “I know, darling.  But please try, okay?”  They made eye contact, a pair of blue-gray eyes meeting deep emerald green ones with no masks or filters or shades in the way.  Therese nodded.  “I am, Carol. _I_ _am.”_ Carol smiled wryly.  “We are not exactly Adam and Eve, are we?  Eve and Eve, perhaps?  In our own Garden of Eden?”  She tightened her arms as Therese rested her head once again on her chest, peaceful and safe within the circle of their love. 

 

 

     Then the younger woman reached up, finding Carol’s rosy lips unerringly and sucking on the lower one until she heard her lover’s quick intake of breath.  “No, not Eve and Eve.  Just Carol and Therese,” she whispered, her tongue coming out, warm and seeking its mate.  “Without their fig leaves.”

    

 

   

 

    

 

 

 

 

    

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and spending this time with these dear characters!


End file.
